But all three of their defeats in this season’s T20 competition have come when batting first.

And Ripley, who saw his side limited to 149 for five at Durham, said: “We had a poor start then we regrouped really well.

“Josh Cobb played very well in a partnership with Ben Duckett, and I thought that was a reasonable score.

“We needed a good powerplay to put them under pressure and we didn’t get that.

“We had our moments, with two new men in at one point, the chance to squeeze but we just kept leaking runs, they ran well and the fine details, one of those games that was tight, could have gone either way.

“We weren’t quite at our best but we fought pretty well.

“We want to play positive cricket. We’ve got guys at the top of the order that like to hit the ball but the pattern is we haven’t set a score very well, apart from Durham at home, even then it wasn’t a big score (the Steelbacks won by 26 runs after registering 161 for nine).

“It’s something we’re aware of - we prefer chasing.

“If we win the toss we will chase but I think there’s a lot of teams out that like to do the same so we’re going to find ourselves chasing quite a bit if we lose the toss and we’ve got to find a way to get to 180 if it’s a good pitch.”

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